UK: Call for killing of newborns to be made legal

MADELEINE TEAHAN

Ethicists call for killing of newborns to be made legal | CatholicHerald.co.uk Wed 4th Apr 2012 | Last updated: Tue 3rd Apr 2012 at 16:28pm Home Latest News Features Comment & Blogs Multimedia Catholic Life Spiritual Life Saint of the week The week ahead The word this week Advertising Subscriptions Hot Topics Pope Benedict XVI Papal Visit 2010 Archbishop Vincent Nichols Personal Ordinariate general audience Latest News Ethicists call for killing of newborns to be made legal By Madeleine Teahan on Wednesday, 29 February 2012 In This Article abortion , Alberto Giubilini , Andrew Lansley , Francesca Minerva , infanticide , Journal of Medical Ethics , Lord Alton , sex-selective abortions Share Share | Related Posts For a moment people have stopped talking about a ‘clump of cells’ and are beginning to see an unborn child The campaign on ‘gendercide’ is blinded by a moral smugness Churches and pro-life groups dread any attempt to change the law on abortion We will win the arguments over marriage and life – but not just with words Students block union’s attempt to stifle free speech on abortion Professors from Milan and Oxford argue that 'foetuses and newborns do not have the same moral status as actual persons' (PA photo) A leading British medical journal has published an article calling for the introduction of infanticide for social and medical reasons. The article in the Journal of Medical Ethics , entitled “After-birth abortion: why should the baby live?” states in its abstract : “After-birth abortion (killing a newborn) should be permissible in all cases where abortion is, including cases where the newborn is not disabled.” The article, written by Alberto Giubilini of the University of Milan and Francesca Minerva of Melbourne University, argues that “foetuses and newborns do not have the same moral status as actual persons” and consequently a law which permits abortion for certain reasons should permit infanticide on the same grounds. The article follows alleged instances of sex-selective abortions throughout Britain raising alarm concerning the application of the 1967 Abortion Act. Lord Alton, co-chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Pro-Life Group, said that infanticide was the “chilling and unassailable” logical step for a society that permits killing a baby one day before birth. He said: “That the Journal of Medical Ethics should give space to such a proposition illustrates not a slippery slope, but the quagmire into which medical ethics and our wider society have been sucked. “Personal choice has eclipsed the sacredness, or otherness, of life itself. It is profoundly disturbing, indeed shocking, to see the way in which opinion-formers within the medical profession have ditched the traditional belief of the healer to uphold the sanctity of human life for this impoverished and inhumane defence of child destruction. “It has been said that a country which kills its own children has no future. That’s true. And a country which accepts infanticide or the killing of a little girl or a little boy because of their gender, the killing of a baby because of a disability, or the killing of a child because it is inconvenient, the wrong shape, or the wrong colour, also forfeits its right to call itself civilised.” But Julian Savulescu, the editor of the Journal of Medical Ethics, has defended the publication of the paper on the British Medical Journal website. He said: “What is disturbing is not the arguments in this paper nor its publication in an ethics journal. It is the hostile, abusive, threatening responses that it has elicited. More than ever, proper academic discussion and freedom are under threat from fanatics opposed to the very values of a liberal society.” He continued: “As Editor of the Journal, I would like to defend its publication. The arguments presented, in fact, are largely not new and have been presented repeatedly in the academic literature and public fora by the most eminent philosophers and bioethicists in the world, including Peter Singer, Michael Tooley and John Harris in defence of infanticide, which the authors call after-birth abortion. “The novel contribution of this paper is not an argument in favour of infanticide – the paper repeats the arguments made famous by Tooley and Singer – but rather their application in consideration of maternal and family interests. The paper also draws attention to the fact that infanticide is practised in the Netherlands. “Many people will and have disagreed with these arguments. However, the goal of the Journal of Medical Ethics is not to present the Truth or promote some one moral view. It is to present well reasoned argument based on widely accepted premises.” Kenneth Boyd, associate editor of the Journal of Medical Ethics, said that the publication of the paper did not reflect his personal view and that the article had gone through the process of academic peer review. Mr Boyd said: “I think what the.......